I decided to stay away from KDE and Gnome and chose Xfce as a window manager. However, even that one has become too cluttered with features in my opinion, so I'm looking for a more minimalistic WM now.

I use WindowMaker, although it's old. When I am trying to persuade myself to go to a windowmanager that's still maintained, I've played with OpenBox. A bunch of my friends use minimalist WMs like Xmonad, 9wm, nawm, ion3, and ratpoison.

My personal use case is- multiple desktops (I keep one train of thought in each desktop/workspace) and keybindings to automatically place windows (so I can put an xterm next to an emacs or somesuch without having to use the mouse)

I don't remember saying Linux shucked, altough it destroyed my system. Now I'm left with boot on the CD and nothing else, which is enough to use internet.

I've tried Gnome and XCFe, and both are very similar I'd say. XCFe has no sound for me it looks like, as opposed to Gnome. I can't get my reso more than 800x600 on neither. Of course I know it's possible but oh well. Installing drivers is the worst idea that ruins the PC world in my opinion.

_________________Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.

Yes, is a big step switching from windows to linux. But believe me when you configure all in linux you will not want to back to windows again, except to play games (you can even emulate windows to run applications that don't run in linux or with wine/cedega).

My recommend is to install both SO's, first windows and then linux (if you don't want windows kills grub). And read the wiki and the basics tutorials (and if you still have any problem just type it in google, there is a huge linux community).

Well, after installing Windows and killing linux, then installing linux and killing windows again, etc... numberous time I guess I FINALLY made both systems being stable on my computer.Too bad linux boots by default when I'd want Windows to do so.

It's good to have linux and I like to test something else, but overall I prefer Windows for many reasons (including many non-objective reasons). Sorry linux fans, but I'm not one of yours, and I strongly disagree to say linux is better than Windows. Both are similar in fact yet different, and since the driver for almost all of my hardware only comes for Windows the chose is made. Most programms for Linux also have their WIndows version (GIMP, Firefox, Opera, etc....) while the opposite is not true (Winamp, YY-CHR, Nintendulator, ...)

Also I don't like to compile stuff by source if the source is not one I personally wrote, I just like having the binaries ready to execute. If the source is there for educationnal purpose, fine it's great but damnit don't expect me to compile them !

_________________Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.

[quote="Bregalad"]Well, after installing Windows and killing linux, then installing linux and killing windows again, etc... numberous time I guess I FINALLY made both systems being stable on my computer.Too bad linux boots by default when I'd want Windows to do so.

It's good to have linux and I like to test something else, but overall I prefer Windows for many reasons (including many non-objective reasons). Sorry linux fans, but I'm not one of yours, and I strongly disagree to say linux is better than Windows. Both are similar in fact yet different, and since the driver for almost all of my hardware only comes for Windows the chose is made. Most programms for Linux also have their WIndows version (GIMP, Firefox, Opera, etc....) while the opposite is not true (Winamp, YY-CHR, Nintendulator, ...)

Also I don't like to compile stuff by source if the source is not one I personally wrote, I just like having the binaries ready to execute. If the source is there for educationnal purpose, fine it's great but damnit don't expect me to compile them ! (and don't make me say that linux is bad it's just that I'm not one of those who don't want to ever touch windows again)

_________________Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.

Well, after installing Windows and killing linux, then installing linux and killing windows again, etc... numberous time I guess I FINALLY made both systems being stable on my computer.Too bad linux boots by default when I'd want Windows to do so.

Not sure if this is what you mean but you can edit the file "boot/grub/menu.lst" and change the var "default".

Not sure if this is what you mean but you can edit the file "boot/grub/menu.lst" and change the var "default".

Already tried that but I don't have the rights to overwrite that file.

And I don't see the point of emulating windows on linux if I have a windows CD standing on my desktop. For people who doesn't have any I see the point, but in my case I don't.

To edit that file you need to be superuser, type "sudo" and then the command to edit the file (like "sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst") or login in the console like superuser (type "su" press enter and it will ask for the superuser password you defined in the installation).

And I don't see the point of emulating windows on linux if I have a windows CD standing on my desktop.

It will make the transition smoother. You just saw how hard it is to do everything different than you did before. If you have decided on the long-term goal of switching to Linux (as I have, because the direction Microsoft is heading to does not look very bright + I'm tired of pirating software), you can make the process less harsh.

I, for example, am trying to give up on all proprietary software and started using under Windows open source software that's also available on Linux. I switched from M$ Office to OpenOffice, from CorelDRAW to InkScape, from Photoshop to GIMP, and so on, so that whenever I replace my OS, I'll at least be comfortable with the tools.

Wine is another way of making the transition smoother. Even if you have switched the OS already, you can keep using software you're used to until you find suitable replacements native to your new OS, instead of going through the trouble changing everything overnight.

IMO, It all boils down to this: Are you happy with Windows? If yes, by all means, keep using it. I doesn't matter how good people say Linux is, it's not magical and you will not learn to love it overnight. Do you not like what M$ is doing to Windows and want to be free from it? Well, then you should switch to Linux, but keep in mind that this is not such an easy task and you'll face some difficulties until you get where you want. It all depends on your long-term goal.

BTW, I'm no Linux lover (just a M$ hater!), but I recognize it's merits as a decent OS and have decided to switch to it eventually. I too have faced all the problems we're talking about here (drivers, dependency issues, not being able to compile things), but I guess I'll just keep trying until I can master all that crap.

To edit that file you need to be superuser, type "sudo" and then the command to edit the file (like "sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst") or login in the console like superuser (type "su" press enter and it will ask for the superuser password you defined in the installation).

It ask me my password, and when I enter it it says "Incorrect password" altough I am absolutely sure it was right (tried multiple times).

Quote:

Are you happy with Windows?

I wasn't until I tried linux. Now I'm happier than ever to be back on Windows.

Quote:

It will make the transition smoother. You just saw how hard it is to do everything different than you did before. If you have decided on the long-term goal of switching to Linux (as I have, because the direction Microsoft is heading to does not look very bright + I'm tired of pirating software), you can make the process less harsh.

Well you are partially right. Windows' almost monopol has been highly controversed since 3.1, people were telling that it required several megabyte of hard disk drive which was insane for it's time, and that older distributions of Linux (Suse) or OS2 should be preferable.

Some installements of Windows (98, XP) were incredibly sucessfull while some others (95, Millenium) were said to be absolutely terrible and that anyone should avoid them. While Vista probably makes it to the second list (altough we have to wait several years to be objective) I see no reason newer installements of Windows couldn't fix the errors made with Vista.

Unless you are an oracel it's hard to tell what the future awaits for computers. The couse to the Gigahertz is over as an electrical signal above some frequency can't propace in copper, and the course to multiple core will have to end some day when technology will touch this end. Manufacturers probably will resort to more original and more nature-preserving hardware to continue selling new stuff, but it's really hard to guess any more.

Quote:

I, for example, am trying to give up on all proprietary software and started using under Windows open source software that's also available on Linux. I switched from M$ Office to OpenOffice, from CorelDRAW to InkScape, from Photoshop to GIMP, and so on, so that whenever I replace my OS, I'll at least be comfortable with the tools.

In fact I've doing that for many years, using exculsively my good old undefeatable Windows 2k. I see no problems using free software on a non-free OS.

_________________Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.

To edit that file you need to be superuser, type "sudo" and then the command to edit the file (like "sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst") or login in the console like superuser (type "su" press enter and it will ask for the superuser password you defined in the installation).

It ask me my password, and when I enter it it says "Incorrect password" altough I am absolutely sure it was right (tried multiple times).

You need the root password, not your own password, to use su. If you know your own password, and your account is listed in the /etc/sudoers file (which lists administrators), you can try these:

sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

sudo vi /boot/grub/menu.lst (I had trouble getting Nano to work on some remote systems, but make sure you know how to use vi before you start it)

sudo bash (to get an administrative shell)

gksudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst (GNOME)

gksudo nautilus (to get an administrative file manager in GNOME)

Quote:

Some installements of Windows (98, XP) were incredibly sucessfull while some others (95, Millenium) were said to be absolutely terrible and that anyone should avoid them. While Vista probably makes it to the second list (altough we have to wait several years to be objective) I see no reason newer installements of Windows couldn't fix the errors made with Vista.

Windows Mojave (that is, Windows Vista Service Pack 1) fixed a lot of annoyances, and these fixes will continue in Windows 7, which appears to be the 98 to Vista's 95.

Hey, just to say I have been able to increase the screen resolution permanently, I have been able to find an application that runs NSF and SPC programms without having to copile anything manually, and I have been able to run Windows programms under that weird "wine" programm. They don't run full speed or flawlessly, but Winamp can output great sound and play all game music you want.

I've also been able to find quite a lot of programms that can do the basic stuff and some emulators (altough they run less smoothly than in Windows for some reason, maybe I should disable the GUI's "super cool" effects for speed ?

I still don't have the Wi-Fi working, but it's not working on my re-instaled Windows either

So yeah linux is really not that much worse than Windows it just takes a lot of time to set up everything so it's as you'd like. It also takes time in Windows anyway.

_________________Life is complex: it has both real and imaginary components.

I've also been able to find quite a lot of programms that can do the basic stuff and some emulators (altough they run less smoothly than in Windows for some reason, maybe I should disable the GUI's "super cool" effects for speed ?

I run Ubuntu 8.04 on two PCs: a Dell and an Asus. I don't like the full effects mode: when I drag a window by its title bar, I want it to feel solid, not rubbery. That's why I stick with simple effects.

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